#407: How MUSCLE Changes Everything: The Secret Organ of Longevity | Why "Healthy Sedentary" Is a Myth (and What To Do Instead) With Dr. Gabrielle Lyon

Welcome to Longevity. I'm your host, Natalie Nidom. I'm a nutritionist, a human potential and epigenetic coach, and I created this podcast to bring you the latest ways to take control of your health and longevity. We cover it all from new technology and ancestral health practices to personalize interventions and a very special interest of mine, peptides and bio-regulators. Enjoy the show. Hi, I'm Natalie Nidom, your host, and we are back with none other than Dr. Gabrielle Lyon, who is on a mission to move the longevity conversation beyond weight and toward muscle quality. With training in geriatrics and nutritional sciences, she explains why intermuscular fat, not the number on the scale, drives metabolic dysfunction and why there's really no such thing as a healthy, sedentary person. Sorry, you're going to have to get up there and move. We also talk about muscles, rule, and brain health, inflammation, and why building strength is one of the most powerful things you can do at any age. This is an important conversation, people. Maybe you've heard this before, but I'm telling you, Dr. Lyon leaves no doubt. We've got to get moving if we're going to live an age well. You've got to check out this episode. Alright, next, I'll thank a couple of sponsors and then we get to dive in. If fresh start is on your list this year, may I suggest starting with the place you spend a third of your life. After the holidays, I don't want any more noise or clutter. I want my home to feel like a retreat, because when I sleep better and feel calmer at home, I show up better everywhere else. So this year, I reset my space with cozy earth. Their Baja bedding collection instantly changed my bedroom, soft textured, reversible, and somehow both cozy and elevated. And their Lex bath towels, plush, absorbent, and actually make getting out of the shower feel like a reward. What I love is that cozy earth designs for the long game. 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And once I fall asleep, Oslo sensors detect that shift and transition me into built in soundscapes that I get to choose designed to support deeper, stable sleep. This isn't sound blocking. It's sound engineering. Oslo combines neuroscience, biometric sleep detection and ultra comfortable design created by former Bose engineers. They're tiny side sleeper approved last all night and were recognized by time as one of the best inventions of 2025. Create a true sleep environment wherever you are. All you have to do to get yours is go to oslo sleep dot com forward slash not make sure to use code net and get $75 off your Oslo sleep buds. Dr. Gabrielle lion, welcome to the show. It is absolutely pleasure to meet you. Thank you so much for having me. Yeah. Well, you know, you're one of those people. It's like I got to get around the show. We got to we need to have that conversation. And you've just emerged as such an incredible beacon for women and not just women, but muscle as that one as the longevity, the organ of longevity, which I think is just the whole concept of it. I think when I first heard about it, I was like you articulated something that maybe we all kind of deep down inside as soon as you started articulating, it was like, yeah, it is. And we're going to dive into that. But before we do that, I want to just kind of go back a little bit and you often describe your childhood and early years as unusually formative for how you see responsibility, grit and personal agency. And so looking back, was there a moment when, you know, that most shaped your belief that discipline is a form of self care and not a, you know, grit your teeth and get through it kind of. I think that there wasn't any single moment. My sister and I, we were chatting, we're actually just recently on a podcast together. And we were talking about my dad used to take us on camping trips. And you know, for most kids, like, oh, that's fun. But when I say camping trips, I'm talking about 13 miles, wherever you're going to have, you're going to pack it in there. You know, I was like real camping. Yeah. Yeah. And you know, when things were too heavy for my sister, she would unload the backpack and I would pick up her stuff. We would, we would share and disperse the weight. And this was just part of our childhood, you know, being very physically active and understanding our surroundings. I would say that that shaped me a lot. Yeah. I would say that that shaped me a lot. And both, you know, my sister, she's actually a professor in criminology. Whoa. Okay. She's a brown belt in Taekwondo in a state running champion. Nice. Wow. Well, but you know, but that that's about doing hard things, right? That that that and I find, I think one of the criticisms of childhood these days is there's maybe not enough hard stuff that's being put in front of kids when they're small. We're trying to protect them so much. Yeah. I actually totally agree with you. And I would say that even in the conversation of doing hard things, it's not typically a female conversation, which by the way, women do a lot of hard things a lot of the time and it's almost expected. And that's why, you know, maybe we don't think to say, you know, Hey, man, you've got two little kids. You're doing X, Y and Z. Uh, that is way outside someone's comfort zone as opposed to, you know, there's a whole other entity where people are like lean into the discomfort. And I'm thinking I'm a little bit of two little kids. My husband is in a second career in a urology residency. I'm already uncomfortable. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'm digging the un discomfort. Yeah. Love it. Um, so you trained under Dr. Donald Laman, who is the world's leading protein scientist and the protein wars continue to rage. Shocking. Shocking. Um, but what drew you to him in the first place? Like, what was the thing? Yeah. Yeah. That's a good question. And Don still mentors me to this day. And I did my undergraduate in the University of Illinois, uh, Champaign-Marbana. And I think we've all had the experience when we're listening to someone talk. And it's outside the norm. Anything. Wow. This guy, this guy is an absolute genius. And that was him. And, uh, I went to every office hour. I was a straight-a student in his classes. And we just got shocking. And I was very interested in this idea of muscle and very interested in the idea and the role of protein and thinking about it differently and thinking about how muscle really shows us our health, right? Not just this training way, but how say a doctor looking at what work would begin to think about muscle and what its role is central role and metabolism is. And, uh, you know, 20 years later, he's still my best friend and mentor, which is wild to think about. That's amazing. Well, I mean, that's a lifelong relationship, right? And you could have done, you could have gone to door number one or door number two. Door number one, this guy's nuts. Nothing. He says makes any sense. And door number two is this guy's brilliance. And in many ways, I would think that that kind of shaped your trajectory. Uh, no, it fully shaped my trajectory. And the other person, which maybe that's the person that introduced us is, do you know Liz Lipski? Dr. Liz Lipski? No, but I know the name. So she's one of the OG functional medicine doctor. She's a PhD and she's a nutritional scientist. Yeah, that's my grandmother. Oh, you're, so this is in your DNA, sister. Yeah, this is not just. There's no door number one, door number two. It's kind of like, okay, here's the door you're going to be going through and I happily charged. Not fully charged. There was really no other way. Yeah, truly. Um, there was no other way. I feel a really big responsibility. I think that if someone has the knowledge, then they have a responsibility to share, and moves people, um, you know, did I was just lucky to have really unique training. You know, I did my fellowship at Washu and Geriatrics and nutritional sciences. And that was really because Don said, if you want to do the kind of work that you want to do in the world, then we need to go and do a fellowship. And not there's a, I think that there's a really heavy responsibility there. Yeah, well, I mean, I would imagine on the Geriatrics and nutritional side, you would have witnessed the fallout of people not prioritizing it. Like, do you think, I mean, I'm going off script here, but do you think as I'm, you know, as we're talking, I'm like, shouldn't muscular load assessment be part of of a annual checkup? Well, even beyond that, beyond muscular load, testing muscle period. So I, I don't believe that body fat is as relevant as a biomarker as we make it actually. Percent body fat, I think, is a secondary. It's almost a secondary outcome, but I think it's the percent of fat in skeletal muscle that actually drives, that actually drives chronic illness. And this came from that another flash of insight I had when I was interviewing on my podcast, a woman named Dr. Melanie Creey. She's an MPHD. And I was like, Melanie, what percent body fat is the tipping point for those that struggle with fertility with PCOS versus those that don't. And she's like, every else has nothing to do with body fat percentage. It has everything to do with intramuscular fat and how either intramuscular fat was. Wow. So be a filet, not a ribeye. Well, I mean, you know, I love a good ribeye, but I'd rather eat it than be it. So, but that's interesting. So how does intramuscular fat, I don't, I don't think I've ever talked about that on the podcast before. Like how does intramuscular fat? You would almost think that it's a question in the muscle and therefore not creating trouble. You're saying it has, it's playing a major role. I believe that it is. I think that we're still too early in the research and also we don't which can be measure it. But basically sedentary muscle, there's no such thing as a healthy sedentary person. Right. And when muscle becomes sedentary, there's no flux, there's no exchange. And fat, you know, we talk about visceral fat and then we talk about fat, fatty liver. But fatty muscle is a thing. And you know, whether it's liver is the first arrangement or muscle, but the primary side for disposal for all of these extra substrates, primarily carbohydrates is muscle first. And then we have to liver can handle it, the muscle can handle it, and the liver has to deal with it. But the fact that it's infiltrated into skeletal muscle changes the morphology of muscle. And it becomes less strong and fibrotic over time instead of this again, this filet, there's connective tissue changes, all kinds of things happen and also metabolic changes. Wow. And that is not if your body by percentage is 40% muscle, if 40% of your body weight is inflamed, you've got a problem. Big time. Big time. So what's a belief that you held earlier in your medical career that you've now come around to? Oh boy. I say this with some level of difficulty. So number one, that body fat, you couldn't be one, couldn't have obesity and refit. So that was wrong. And again, this intermoistular adipose tissue, you can reduce it by the simple act of training whether body composition trains or not, changes are not. That's very empowering. This idea that just a simple act of doing some kind of physical activity changes things, regardless of outcome is important. The other thing was animal and plant proteins. I was convinced that you couldn't build muscle and plant protein. And that's not true. Okay, well that's interesting. Tell me, but it's still not a prime. I still don't. Again, it's not just a protein conversation. It's what about B12, what about B6? What about the protein matrix? It's not just here drink your protein as this obscure kind of solution. It's why EAAs will never really replace full food protein. That essential amino acids, which is a really good point, are work. We recommend them. So especially now with the use of GLP ones, essential amino acids, EAAs seem to be much more valuable, at least in our clinic, because the overall hunger and consumption is down. Yeah. And if you're eating two ounces of fish, you're going to get, I don't know, 10 grams of protein or whatever, then adding EAAs essential amino acids with that meal will signal to the body that it's a higher protein meal. So that's where it can be very valuable. Yeah, no, I mean, I'm a huge fan of EAAs for GLP one use. And we're going to get to GLP ones in a bit. So because I think that it's, I mean, at this point, you can't have a conversation without talking about the GLPs and understanding the nuances. And I love your approach. I've heard it. And I think it's, you know, there's two camps in the world right now. And hopefully the nuance camp is growing at the expense of the naysayers. So you've said that modern sedentary behavior, it's not just not moving enough. It's actually a disease state. And you were you were looting to that earlier when you were just talking about the marbling that happens in muscle. So physiologically, what does an activity actually do to the body that most people in even most clinicians really underestimate or don't see? There's a handful of things. And I, you know, did my training in geriatrics and this is very underappreciated is the simple act of contracting skeletal muscle. And when I say skeletal muscle, you know, I'm talking about the muscles under voluntary control. There's smooth muscle and there's cardiac muscle, but skeletal muscle is the only organ system that we have voluntary control over. And most people recognize the importance of muscle for strength and mobility, all of this other stuff. I think there's two areas where it's extremely underappreciated. Number one, it's role in metabolism. And I'm not talking about that it is a very metabolically active tissue. It's it's quite frankly, it's not. That is a huge misconception. At rest, the body, you know, you're talking about just a few calories that skeletal resting skeletal muscle burns. Okay. It doesn't burn a lot. When it burns a lot is when you're using it in activity. So that is a very big misconception. But something that I don't think that people appreciate is this contractile tissue that skeletal muscle is an endocrine organ. So it acts when you contract it, it secrete myocons or, you know, these little, these hormones that act both locally on the tissue itself, systemically, and, you know, on various other tissues. And in particular, the brain, when you act, whether you get stronger or not, right, there's, you know, over a thousand myocons, but the simple act of contracting skeletal muscle increases your cognitive abilities, whether it's executive function, whether it's working memory. And another aspect to that is the faster you move physically, the faster you think it improves cognitive processing speed. That's amazing. Well, I think we see it. And you see it in kids, right? The kids who are athletes in school very often are hyperformers academically. The idea, you know, it's so funny, say that I was working on a talk that I'm giving on Monday. Yeah. And the idea of dumb jock, I have no idea right? Because technically those people are the smartest. Yeah. If like strength is an indication of if improved like strength is an essence goes with stronger cognition, these guys are geniuses. Well, I think the word that dumb truck comes from maybe is the occasional person you'll come across or kid who you'll come across who maybe has been told they're not smart and they excel at sports. And so they just lean into that thing that they're good at. And then they get to solve the story. And kids will kind of buy it when you say it to them often enough. So anyway, I'm sure that talk will be fascinating. Okay. So where do you see the research heading next on skeletal muscle functioning like an endocrine organ? And I think you touched on it a minute ago, especially regarding cognition, neuro protection and mood regulations. So you're you're touching on it already. Like, so just the mere act of contracting a muscle is going to feed the brain. So maybe let's kind of dive into that a little bit. Well, I think your question is a really good one. Your question of where do I think that the field is going when it comes to skeletal muscle? I'm going to tell you exactly where I think it's going because I think we're at the beginning of it. We're not I don't know. Actually, I don't even think that we're at the beginning of it. It's just going to be a number of things that are going to be very uncomfortable for people to hear. The use of anabolic agents are going to be important. And anabolic agents are, you know, you're talking about testosterone, but there are other anabolic agents that are going to be critical for muscle because it's not just the increase in androgenic activity, androgenic activity, but there's going to be an increase or a need. Again, if we're talking about optimal health for anabolic activity, we're talking about anabolic agents, myostatin inhibitors. So there's going to be what I believe. Again, I believe this is there has to be more interest in that. Without a shadow of a doubt, and there's so much stigma around hormones and anabolic agents that I don't know how long it's going to take. Yeah, but I think it's the most important aspect. It's the most one of the most important tools that we have to address muscle health. There's another component that I think is underappreciated that I don't even think we have enough data. There's two other components. Number one, actually testing for the quality of muscle and imaging muscle like the way that we image fat. We're not there, and it's not routinely used, and it's critical. We have to get a better understanding, and it has to be more mainstream. And then the final part is using technology. For example, radio frequency, and other technology that allows for super physiological contractions. And why do I say that? People can go and do a squat, and I could do 10 reps of a squat, and you could do 10 reps of a squat, and my husband who's highly trained could do 10 reps of a squat, but we are all stimulating tissue differently, and it's not. There isn't, it's much different than nutritional sciences. So for for nutritional sciences, we pretty much have an idea, and we can calculate how much glucose someone can dispose of in a two-hour period. Right, and we've been those calculations. But for training and muscle stimulation, there's so many other components, there's so much genetic variability, and there's so much training variability, that that is going to require some kind of standardization, especially with the use of gel p-wants. If we flip on its head that body fat doesn't really matter, and skeletal muscle is the organ system that matter, that really matters. We are so far behind where we need to be. So I think things like there's machines like M-sculpt, which has a terrible name. Terrible. Terrible. The idea that we need to sculpt our body is absolutely the wrong thing. But what's fascinating is that these machines allow for increasing muscle mass. Yeah, so it's my increasing the recruitment of muscle fibers, right? Yes, it's in the stimulation. It's stimulating. And again, I think that the ability to contract and the signal goes down a bit, and we really need to streamline that and standardize that, and that's what I think is going to change everything. Yeah, I actually just acquired a suit, like an electrical muscle, an electrical muscle, stim suit. And it's changed how I feel about my workouts completely. It's really interesting. I mean, I'm in beginning stages, but it's a whole different experience because you have muscular contraction happening, even without doing anything, but then when you start using your body, it just goes so much deeper. It's just a really, but you are, you do feel more depleted on the other side. I think that now that as we get into these technologies and they evolve, and maybe this is where what you're talking about, maybe the anabolic conversation is part of that as well, is that number one, you have to feed the gains. You have to feed the depletion. You have to replete what you've used up. But these anabolic agents, I want to go back to those because I think it's so interesting you bring that up because obviously they've gotten a bad name because they've been overused and misused forever. But in an aging population, used in a different way in nuance is going to be a whole new world. Like I've heard that our satellite cells just kind of, they just don't work properly when we get older. And those are the cells that are responsible for generating new muscle fibers. I mean, I put that experience, and bet that explanation. But actually, I think it's, you bring up this wonderful point. Yes, satellite cells become a bit dysregulated. The immune cells within muscle tissue become dysregulated. There's all kinds of things that happen. And anabolic agents, again, it's a very uncomfortable conversation, frankly, for me to have. But I know that it's the future. And it's kind of like, you know, they took the FDA black box warning off of hormones for women. They're probably going to do the same for testosterone. Yes. But that is now just happening. Yeah. Anabolic agents, that's not even enter the conversation. Now, there's anabolic agents that are used for burn victims for anemia FDA approved for anemia of chronic disease, osteoporosis. But I just think that if we were to get very real, if we really recognize muscle as this organ of longevity, we have to recognize that there are medications that improve its tissue. And I'm going to tell you something else. Now, just take a moment to think about this. People can go to their doctor and say, I want a medication that is going to help me lose body fat. Yeah. Actually, I don't think anything about it. Yeah. If a patient goes in and say, I want a medication that's going to make me build muscle. It's like, oh my gosh, you can't do that. It's insane. So where it cognitively makes absolutely no sense from from my perspective. And I'm hoping the clinicians listening to this pack has also agreed. It makes absolutely no sense. Yeah. It's, you know, it's, I was having this conversation recently with someone and I said, you know, this obsession with losing fat is like, if you're, if you've ever taken an advanced driving course, then, and you're going, they're teaching you about how to take a hairpin turn. They're telling you, don't look at the wall. Because if you look at the wall, that's exactly where you're going. And this obsession with losing fat is missing the point of if we were instead obsessed with building muscle, we would lose the fat that we needed to lose. And you would end up with the muscle that you need to keep the fat away. Like, it's, it's, it's, it's almost like semantics, but it's putting the emphasis on it on a different point. And I, I want to get to the part where we're going to talk about GLPs because I still think they can, they can play a role in this increasing muscle mass. Sure. If you're used properly because the mechanism of action is there. It's just that we're not feeding it properly. But before we go there, I want to go back to this idea of a brain power, how resistance training improves brain power. This is still very shocking to people, right? You, it's, you're trying to say this to someone and they're like blank. It seems so surprising because the majority of the brain, I think probably 30% of the brain is all designed for movement. Remember, we were taught the homunculus. Yeah. So that's, it's fascinating that we wouldn't, there were always looking for hacks and shortcuts, but the biggest hack and shortcut would be something strong. Yeah. So let's help people understand like mechanistically, what are the pathways that are feeding back from the muscle to the brain? Well, it's really through this myokine pathway is, is really what they believe to be the primary from a mechanistic perspective. And actually, it's so funny that you say that I will give, I will tell you exactly some of the most up-to-date data that I have been looking at, which is, let's see if I can pull that up. That would be so awesome. I wonder if it didn't transfer over. So one of the, there's a handful of big ways and then I'll get into some of the nuances in the contractile tissue from, let's see, just give me one second. I'm so excited to be able to share this. I'm so excited. You're pulling stuff up on your computer. I'm excited. I just have to press guys. I was just looking at some of the recent meta analysis with this. So it's very exciting if I can pull it up. Hold on, give me just a minute. And I'm sure your team can edit out this slight delay. Just close this. Okay. Oh yeah, I just like you know all this. Okay. The myokine conversation, oh gosh, all right. Well, yes, okay, found it. So there is, let's talk about first that there's different training modalities. There's resistance training and then there's this physical mental training, right? Like if we work on balance or whatever and then there's aerobic. Resistance training in particular, which obviously is my first love, seems to affect the brain different and we just have to recognize that these are very highly complicated processes. Right, there's the default mode network. There's various parts of the brain. There's all these different things. But for example, like high intensity interval training, there's around the, you know, there's roughly five different mechanisms that again that pretty much we believe is the reason that why it works. Number one, this myokine production, contracting muscle based on the duration and intensity releases myokines that there's a whole whole host. So BDNF is probably the most popular. There's capets and B. There's all kinds. Capets and B crosses the blood brain barrier and helps promote neurogenesis and BDNF release. Again, this is just one. It improves both peripheral blood flow and cerebral blood flow. Yeah, where is, which we know then there is also an enhancement in the mitochondrial function depending on how you're training, whether it's it or resistance training. And then what I thought was really fascinating is that it preserves structural brain function. And I'm not going to mess with my computer, but there was one study that I was looking at, particularly in women in post-modern causal women that resistance training helped decrease the risk of atrophy. So brain atrophy, the shrinkage of the brain matter. Yeah. So we were really the ways in which these are a handful of ways in which is pretty well established. I will also say one other thing. These are mechanisms. How these mechanisms then translate over to humans. We haven't really been able to say, okay, well, this myokine, you know, primarily does. This, I mean, it's out there in the literature, but I think that it's still not, it's not as black and white, you know. There's an amazing researcher. So many years ago, there's a woman named Bente Pederson, Bente Pederson. And she is the one that really discovered this. She's an immunologist. And so there's theory. And then there's that practical aspect of, is it really doing what we think? And I think that there are still some questions, but these are some of the main ways that we believe that it works. Yeah, it's funny, you know, like listening to you speaking about this, you can really feel that what you were saying earlier that we're so behind on understanding muscle outside of, it makes us stronger. Beyond muscle is a physical thing. This whole idea of muscle as a longevity organ, you know, and when people say that, it's like, yeah, it's so that I can walk around and do what I want, but it's really so much more than that. It's what you're talking about, regulating inflammation, the immune system, the brain, like it's, it's a major, major player in the whole body. And what makes it the most powerful, it's the only one we have voluntary control over. Right. It's the only one. Like so essentially, it's, it's a choice. Yeah, is it ever too late? No, it's not too late. Yeah, I mean, I want people to hear that right now because if you're 70 years old and you haven't seen the inside of a gym or lifted anything beyond a can of whatever, it's not too late for you to get out there and start doing things. I think that's really profound because there is always an ability to get stronger and that's critical. It's critical to believe that we can. And you know, one of the things, again, I'm still practicing. And you know, in our, our clinic is called Strong Medical, which is kind of cool, but yeah, medical as it should be. But the idea that we are limited by age is not true. And you know, you can always get stronger, and there's really only one way to not do it well or at all, and that's just to not do it. People, there is very little barrier to entry. And I think that people have to take it very seriously. And this is a problem is because there's voluntary choice. People sometimes make a choice to not include it. And that's a problem. Well, and there's so many, there's so many barriers, well, mental barriers to it. You know, this, and I don't want to get into it even because I think there's so many more interesting things we could be talking about. But the message to, to the audience that it's never too late. And even if you don't have antibiotic agents, even if, you know, your satellite cells aren't working as well. And I would think that for a person who's sedentary, the growth curve is pretty vertical, at least in the initial stages of training. Like, how different you'll feel in the progress you'll make will be dramatic. There is an adaptation. Process that happens. The first process is a neuromuscular. It's more of a neural process. And then you build strength. And also training is a skill. Muscular movement is a skill that we have to become good at. And I will say, even if we are driving toward an outcome of strength, mobility, flexibility, the simple act of doing the activity improves your health. And you know, it empties the tank. It uses glycogen. It increases these myocons, it does all kinds of things that are critical for our survival, you know? Absolutely. When you talk about myostatin inhibitors, what are your thoughts? I just thought I'd throw this in there because you brought up myostatin. What are your thoughts on the, there's some gene therapies out there right now, like the fullest. Yeah. What are your thoughts? I don't have enough data to make a scientific thought, but I can tell you my personal thought. Sure. I think that there could be benefit, especially if someone is older. It seems that it's very easy to turn off the gene therapy. Yeah. I personally don't necessarily see any problem with it. But again, that is not a scientific recommendation. That's just a personal thought. I was just asking for your personal thought and you're better educated than most to give your personal thoughts. So we need to weigh the future and then we have to figure out ways to improve and maintain meaningful muscle. Yeah. You have to. I think what I've seen in the people I've known to do it is the people who do the best or the people who move. It's the people who don't rely, who don't somehow buy this story line that you're going to do a gene therapy and then you don't have to do much and things will change. It's like anything else. But I think over time we'll find that the people who lean in and now take this as an opportunity to do the physical, to put in the physical effort are going to reap the biggest benefits. But to your point, it's still early days. So one thing before we move on to GLP ones is this whole issue of you've said that brain fog is not always neurological. Yeah. So what are the patterns you're seeing that in patients that really connect the muscle tissue to this whole impaired executive function? Well, I would say that there's a number of things and definitely hormones can play a role. But the other thing that we see, and this isn't necessarily related to training, but environmental exposures play a huge role. Again, this is what we're seeing in our clinic. Yeah. Environmental exposures play what we seem to believe to be a huge role in cognitive function. Because if the environmental toxin load is so high, again, this is very gray water here. This is not evidence-based. This is not evidence-based in these moments because no one can agree. The environmental medicine doctor is don't agree and whatever. But the environmental impact seems to be a huge, and when I say environmental, I mean mold exposure, I mean air quality, I mean, yeah, I mean, those are huge problems. I think that as the further we go, I mean, every single physician I talk to, and it doesn't matter what the topic is, is bringing up this idea of toxic load in the body. And it's, I don't think it's rocket science. I mean, yeah, it'll be great when we can quantify it and have more data, if you will. But it doesn't, if the body's systems, if the body's filled with toxins, it's filled with garbage, the system's not going to be able to function properly. Yeah. That's just not. Do you think that that exercise, but I feel like exercise is in a small way, a way to detox or a way to improve body's ability to clear? I think if we were to break this down, I'll give you my thoughts. Training is important for a number of reasons. So we've talked about it in improving cerebral blood flow and helping with mitochondrial function and improving myocime production. All those things are meaningful. But the other aspect of sweating is also a way to improve the detoxification system. Another thing that I think is really underappreciated is that as individuals get older, their glutathione production goes down. Yes. And instead of where dietary protein comes in because we're not eating for protein, we're eating for these amino acids. And so for example, methionine and cysteine are precursors for glutathione and the production of glutathione as the master antioxidant does decrease. And so there are ways that, and why do I tie this into muscle is because, you know, obviously, muscle is stimulated by protein. And those choices are, if we're eating for healthy brain function, whatever is good for muscle, seems to be good for brain. Yeah. So 100%. You'd said earlier that your belief that you can't build muscle without animal protein has been challenged. But I would say that it's a lot more work. Would you agree with that? And this data is really the younger generation. So 25 year old men looking at plant protein and animal proteins seem to make the same gains. 25 year old men. Yeah. So again, that's really kind of great for everybody. But the reality is that, so if we were to then take the randomized control trials and then put it into practice into real life, which is not actually how things are designed to do, most aging women are not eating much. Right. They're probably not even hitting 1500 calories. And so if you are going to be consuming a high amount of plant protein, we know because of its bioavailability, you're probably going to have to be consuming 35% more total calories. Right. And the right ones. That comes carbohydrates. And you know, if you're not active and don't have a ton of muscle, then you begin to distort metabolism. Yeah. So that is, I don't want people to think that, you know, in my opinion, plant protein is not the way to go because we already have nutrients at risk, especially for an aging population, you know, zinc, selenium, all these nutrients that ride along with complex protein sources. That's great. Plants are great for fiber and phytonutrients and all this other stuff. But when we're talking about protein, I think it's a luxury to be able to have access to the kind of food that we have. Yeah. No, I really, I agree with that also. So I can't believe people are still fighting over it. Well, I was really interesting. I saw a screenshot. I don't actually go on social media much. You know, some are concerned about talking about it. And I looked at this, someone tagged me in Peter Tia and something. And I sent it over to Don Laman. And it was really funny. And he said, oh, you know, yeah, I published three randomized control trials that say the opposite. Someone was saying that higher protein diets are bad for people over the age of 55. And he said, oh, yeah, well, I published three. You know, trials talking about this. I was like, okay, have you ever noticed how your body says, I'm tired. But your brain's like, let's lay here and overanalyze everything you've ever said to anyone. You do everything right. Dim the lights, no screens, camomile tea, but your brain is still wired. And this is where trunk dark comes in. A multi pathway sleep support from wizard sciences. This is not a knockout pill. It's a gentle nudge toward that wind down zone. I take it about 30 minutes before bed. And it actually helps my body and my brain sync up for sleep. It's layered support, glycine to help cool your body temperature. GABA to press the brain's brake pedal. The laryon root for that herbal calm and 5-HTP to help serotonin flow into melatonin. Even your gut gets some love with inulin and blues spirulina. If your brain's been ignoring bedtime lately, check out trunkdart at wizard sciences.com and use code net 15 for 15% off. I've been using it for a few nights and I am loving it. The post I saw was between the ages of I think it was 50 to 65 that excess protein would overdrive mTOR and increase the risk of cancer. It's so old school. I don't know who even believes that it's crazy that it's still out there. Okay. Well this whole toggle between mTOR and apt-k is really interesting. But are you of the opinion also that every once in a while you do need to go amp-k dominant just to allow the body to clean things up? And by once in a while I'm thinking it could be once a week. I'm not saying for a month or two months. I think it was to get really clear on. So mTOR is mammalian target of rapid mison or depending on when you studied it, mechanistic target of rapid mison. And it's in every tissue. It is a driver for growth in every tissue. It is sensitive to different substrates more primarily in various tissues. Okay. In skeletal muscle mTOR is exquisitely sensitive to losing and amino acids. The pancreas and the liver and all these other organs are more sensitive to insulin and carbohydrates and excess energy. So why do we care about mTOR? MTOR again is this cascade, this protein complex, there's a cascade for muscle proteins and this. So if we believe that mTOR stimulation is bad in muscle because of protein because that's where it's sensitive to, then we would also believe that resistance training and exercise would be bad because that also stimulates mTOR in the same robust way. Right. And so the idea that mTOR somehow drives cancer and it's related to protein is incorrect. What's more detrimental is overall total calories, particularly excess consumption of carbohydrates, which drive mTOR in all the other tissues. Okay. I can't wait to see what you're saying. It seems specific. Okay. And that seems to be completely missed. It's tissue specific. Yeah. No, that's actually really interesting. So I think that the idea, though, was not so much that mTOR is bad, but more that if that's all we ever think about and never take the foot off the pedal that maybe there could be value in periodically fasting or you know, just changing things up a little bit just to probably. And but I wouldn't, I don't know if I would think about it in that way. Okay. So chronically elevated mTOR is not good. And the race, one would chronically elevate mTOR would be small, high carbohydrate meals throughout the day. That's not the idea. Okay. But having discrete meals with protein, we'll stimulate mTOR probably last. We don't totally know my last for five hours. There's other EIF or other, you know, there's initiation factors. There's other factors that are also stimulated, which is why you shouldn't do small protein feedings throughout the day either. I don't, I don't agree with that. You should eat protein in discrete meals. So like a ballast, like a thing. Yeah. And then you go through periods of time where your foot is off the pedal. But again, there's speculation and then there is what does the data show? And would long periods of fasting or decreasing mTOR, I mean mTOR is, you know, you want it on and then you want it off. But I also don't know if you look at some of Blake Rasmussen's work, I don't know if it's ever off. Right? It's seen all. So again, you know, I don't know if it's the dietary component that we push our foot on. But I will say small carbohydrate, carbohydrate, heavy meals throughout the day are, is not good. Yeah. I mean, this whole idea of grazing all day long, not good idea in general. You're never taking right. Okay, let's get into GLPs because GLPs are, you know, the molecule of the decade at this point. They're not about to leave the news anytime soon. So you've spoken very candidly about prescribing GLP ones when appropriate, but also about this looming crisis of sarcopenic obesity, which let's talk, let's define for the audience what sarcopenic, I mean sarcopenic is the big word obesity everybody knows. So what signs do you look for when you're deciding who's metabolically resilient enough to safely use these meds? Number one, I believe that everyone should have a choice. That people should have a choice. It is their body prescribing there has to be a reason and there has to be safety, safety involved. I think that again, it depends on what the person needs and wants. For example, let's say a person has been trying to lose 10 pounds for 20 years. They're not grossly overweight, but that 10 pounds has been creating quite a bit of cognitive distress. Then, you know, why would I not be able to say here as a physician will provide a microdose to see if that doesn't seem to help lower some inflammation, see if that improves your hunger levels, etc. So I think that there is a personal choice, perspective of, you know, for the patient and obviously the provider of safety. But yeah, I think that that's the biggest thing and then evaluating does this person have the right habits to maintain muscle? Because the average person stays on a GLP1 two years and then when they come off of that, what have they lost? They've lost a large amount of muscle and then where are they? So what do we, what are people, and I mean, when I first learned about GLPs, what I learned is that they improve the expression of blood for receptors at skeletal muscles. So that means in plain English that your skeletal muscle is better able to grab glucose out of blood and use it for energy. So that should mean, or go, that it's easier to exercise and we should be able to, if we're using them properly and exercising, that should make it easier to build muscle. I think that there is going to be emerging data that there are positive effects on skeletal muscle and GLP1s as opposed to the negative. We're saying it causes a decrease in muscle and it accelerates muscle loss. I don't, I mean, we don't see data like that. Do I think that it improves glucose for receptors in a meaningful way? I'm not sure. But where I do think that we are also going to see a fact is that it decreases intermuscular adipose tissue. It does. You know that intermuscular adipose tissues are problem. Right. And that's where I think we're going to start to really see good positive changes, which is one of the reasons why it potentially improves fertility. Right. Because you talked about PCOS and intermuscular fat earlier. Yeah. Interesting. So for someone who's losing weight fast on GLPs, because this is probably someone who has a lot of weight to lose. Right. How do you help them assess whether they're losing the right weight? Because even when you talked earlier about the woman or the person, I don't know if you said women specifically, but someone who's been struggling with the same 10 pounds for years. And it, you know, it brings to mind postmenopausal women. Right. Postmenopausal women, they wake up one morning and there's 10 pounds that have moved in that wasn't there before and for seemingly no reason. And I think one of the things that we forget is they may only look like they gain 10 pounds, but if they haven't been exercising, they actually may have swapped out a whole lot of muscle for fat. Yeah. And that's really this idea of sarcopenic obesity is that the weight stays the same, but the body composition changes. Yeah. And this is something that we see definitely in aging is that muscle loss increases and fat mass increases. So lower muscle mass, higher body fat. Yeah. And the solution for that is pretty basic resistance exercise movement. Well, I mean, it's not that simple, but it's not. I struggle with it because again, we worked on some of the early studies before it was really a thing in 2000 and where when was it? It was a long time ago. When we shifted from the food guide pyramid to a 1.6 gram per kg protein in the diet, making breakfast a robust amount of protein, those patients lost less muscle mass and less, actually, it was lean tissue because it's hard. The loss is very subtle. Yeah. So thinking about sarcopenia, it's 10% per 10 years per decade. The dexa changes are not that sensitive. So skeletal muscle gain and loss, it's not very sensitive, especially it's not very sensitive inter individual. It's difficult to pick that up. So, is it enough to improve muscle health? It is. But then the question becomes what would be optimal? And will we ever be in a position where people are getting enough training to be optimized? And that's where I think that things like these machines and radio frequency can really come into play. And again, I'm not talking about just good how they're talking about how do we move people to optimal? We don't even have a number for optimal muscle mass. No. We have a worse for a percentage of body fat, but we don't have a number for where someone should be. Right. Based on your body, should your percent muscle mass be 55%, we don't know. What about genetic variations in that space? Because some people build muscle a whole lot easier than others. That's right. And does that mean that you're built to carry less muscle or does that just mean you're at a disadvantage? I think it's a great question. Yeah. And I also think it comes down to fiber types. So there's primary fiber types, type one, type two. And obviously there's type two X and there's these hybrid fiber types, but you know, type one fibers, people are better at endurance, type two fibers. And again, you can train all of this. There's probably a proclivity to certain things. And I think they're all really good questions. I think that we know a lot about muscle when it comes to sport and performance and way less when it comes to health and wellness. Yeah. You know, like the immune impact on, you know, you can get an auto immune disease of skeletal muscle. It's not very common. No one talks about that. I have a lot of time. What a nightmare. We're checking it. And again, I just think that there's so much related to muscle and where we're going that is the most important frontier, especially with the increase of G-Up Nuan's. Yeah. So go back to that. So if you had to design a non-negotiable muscle first protocol for anyone considering a GLP one, what would the essential anchors be? And where to most patients just fall? Yes. Well, that's exactly why I wrote the playbook. So my first book forever strong was this manifesto. And it really talked about the foundational science. But the forever strong playbook comes out January 27th. And this is all protocol driven. It's both written for providers as well as patients alike. And it shows you exactly what you need to do. It has a how to think, how to eat, how to move, it has a basic training program. It is the book that I wish that I had. And so that's why I wrote it. Nice. So it covers nutrition, right? That's a non-negotiable how you're going to design a diet dietary protein is your first decision. You have to be creating enough stimulus. It's not about progressive overload. It's about progressive stimulus. There's many ways to improve because again, your muscle strength and ability will outpace your tendons. And the last thing you want to do is get injured. So we put in a protocol for pre-hab and a protocol for training so that people can then take that forward. And then, you know, you do have to have a how to think section. I mean, people have a million health books on their shelves. And shelves, what's the difference between being able to be discerning and take the next right action. And I think that has to be addressed. My line of social goals are, get your nutrition right. You have to train. You have to be thinking right. And then ultimately, you have to recover because that's where muscle and that's where, you know, this re-calibration happens. It's like the the world needs a rethink on exercise and muscle. It's it'll be interesting to see as we move forward. Even it has to be, you know, when you talk, you think about what you brought up first when we started the conversation about going camping with your dad and you as a nine-year-old with your sister figuring out how to distribute the load so that not your father's saying it's okay, I'll carry your packs. You guys just come along. But the two of you sitting there figuring it out and that building into you, both of you, this this ability and openness to doing even when it's hard, it's like that almost has to be brought back into schools because like, you know, like we're losing it with little kids in school. I, you know, gym programs are getting canceled all over the place and it's being left up to parents to figure out the sports piece for their kids, which is a battle because of screens and whatnot. But building that in, it's like good food, building it in when they're kids and not waiting till they're 30 years old and inflamed and miserable to try and figure it out then. Yeah, I think that, you know, when we think about setting our youth up and setting standards for them, we're not raising children or really raising adults. Yeah. That's why I think it's extremely valuable because think about all the habits that you and I had to unlearn and undo. Now, it takes like 20 years to figure that out. Why not at least take the physical piece off and give them a framework for mental strength and also physical strength. And if they decide they don't want to do it fine, but as opposed to the opposite making them have to come into good habits that we know are good for them, you know, so we're raising raising adults from raising kids. Yeah, no, it's a great perspective. And the piece of mental strength is very important to because if we only think about physical strength without the mental strength piece, physical strength doesn't happen. And frankly, I think they come hand in hand. It's definitely a lot of directional relationships. You can't do one without the other. Okay, let's jump along here. Can you walk us through a little bit of your growth to zone framework? Basically, this is about what is what are the core psychological shift that allows someone to see stress as fuel rather than someone something to escape, right? So this is still in this whole mindset world. And how do we frame, for example, how do we frame a tough workout as an amazing thing as opposed to, oh God, I just need to get through this. Yeah, no. So when you think about building capacity, is that that's what you ask me, right? Yeah, I mean, it's just basically helping people to understand like, what's that psychological shift that they have to that we need to make so that we can see stress as a good thing? I mean, just reframing and then just, yeah, you have to understand why it even matters to you. Yeah, so if you feel good being comfortable and in the status quo, in your status quo, that's fine. There's absolutely nothing wrong with that. And then, just be very aware is, do you feel like you're going to wake up with regret one day? Is there this quiet voice that says, you know, you could be working or doing something a little bit more challenging and just fulfilling your own potential. So I think that asking really real questions, I mean, I ask questions of myself all the time. And constantly challenging myself. It's, could this be done better? Where am I really at with this? And you have to be able to understand your why is to why you are doing something? Yeah, and get really clear. You know, as I'm looking at this playbook, what do I think is a really big important component to understand? There is a capacity. There's this idea that there's really these four quadrants. So there's where we are in a growth zone. And so this is the level of challenge meets your level of capacity. And this is where you're always feeling just a little bit uncomfortable. But you can, you can meet the challenge. You know, this is what you do, you were designed for it. And then there's someone who has really high capacity, but their level of challenge is say, you know, lower by choice. So they have high capacity, but the level of challenges is like 50%. And where you kind of in recovery, recovery is like this recovery zone. And then there's the stagnation zone. And this is the worst place to be. People go here often when they're in limbo. It's the level of challenge is really low. And your capacity usage is really low. And this is really the worst place to be. It's like this lower left hand corner. And it's where you're just on autopilot. And I think that it's it's a slow death on autopilot. And then of course, if the level of challenges too high and your capacity is too low, this is kind of burnout and breakdown. Yeah, that's all the people going back to the gym in January for the first week and then falling a part of the seams. Yeah, but you know what I mean? Like they go in there all guns blazing with crazy expectations and they get super sore. They get injured or whatever the case may be. And then you never see them again. I mean, I used to be a fitness instructor and I saw it every year, September and January. People would come in and they're so keen and then they just disappear. And and very often it's it's outstripping their capacity and just getting frustrated and feeling like I just can't do this. So getting into that place where you're slightly uncomfortable, you're challenging yourself, but you're also able to pick yourself up the next day and move on. Yeah. And also and also just side note, soreness doesn't necessarily mean you had a good workout, right? Soreness is can be a number of things. It's not an indicator. It's not the end result. It's not the end goal. Yeah, right. We'll be like, oh, I'm soaring a stop. Okay. It's like good, better and different. Yeah. Well, whereas other people are like, if I didn't get sore after that workout, clearly I didn't work hard enough. Right. That's not the way we want to think about it. No, that's the back to the no pain, no gain, old school of thought. So maybe let's talk a little bit about the line and that feeds into this a little bit. This whole the whole line between overwork and discipline. And we see this a lot in in high powered executives. So people who you know, just don't cut themselves any slack. People who are just like if I'm not, if I'm not, if I'm not moving, then I'm not doing anything. And you just mentioned recovery a couple of times. And which is I think one of the big mistakes that people make with training is they forget to take a day off or two days off. Or what are we doing on those days off? It's a hard lesson to learn by the way. Yeah. So is your question what is the fine line? How do you tell the difference in your body between, you know, I mean, you want to be put, like we just said it, you want to push yourself into some at least some discomfort. But how do you know when you're going too far? How do we help people make discern between those two things? This is personal for everybody, right? And I used to think that I wasn't doing well if I wasn't, you know, just grinding myself to the bone. And I think it shows up in different ways for different people. But you have to get really clear with yourself, you know, are you burned out? Are your skills kind of, you know, you're not living up to what you know that you could be meaning, let's say you go and you give a talk or you do a thing and you're not able to do it really well. And probably overreaching. Yeah. Now it's a very personal thing. Yeah. And I think it's the signs of you're not recovering. I mean, if we take it down to the physical, you're getting sick, you're not, you're getting weaker instead of stronger. You're, you know, it's that kind of like those obvious markers that and I mean, I had a friend who was at the gym every day, seven days a week. And I could see him coming apart at the scenes. But you know, what was interesting for this person is it was his way of managing his mental health. And he couldn't envision a day where he didn't go to the gym. Yeah. And that's, you know, there's other ways like going to a cold plunge or whatever, you know, but again, if the overall, the overall objective is growth, growth is not, it's not linear. Yeah. Yeah. No, it's helping people to understand that for sure. How early in life do you think we can see the detect, we can kind of see the trajectory of someone who will become sarcopenic? Can you see it early on or is it something that can just get in like? That's a great question. I don't think anyone has ever asked me that. I don't think that we totally know. You know, man, that's a really great question. It's a hard one. But we do know is that when individuals train early, because again, first of all, it's never too late. But if we were to say, okay, how are we going to protect people from sarcopenia training early enough where you're priming these satellite cells and these myonucleia is really what we want to be thinking. So there's no way to tell for sure, because again, there's autoimmune diseases, skeletons, all kinds of things. But if we were to flip that, how do we know or give people the best ability to protect themselves? It's train early. Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's filling it in kids, right? It's, it's also builds the, it builds the habit. Yeah. It's kind of what you do. You know, there's been a lot of talk about, oh, you know, kids shouldn't lift weights. I totally disagree. Which ones? I, kids shouldn't lift weights. I totally disagree. I've told you like to talk about that. That's interesting. I actually saw nine-year-old doing crazy stuff with a barbell. And I was talking about that, but you know, my kids are lifting. It's, there's no reason why a child shouldn't. It's, it's not going to affect growth plates. It's, you know, we're not talking about one rep, Max says, we're talking about, how do we begin to prime the skeletal muscle to do what it needs to do? And the way to do that is to do it young. Again, I think it's a really good question. How do we, you know, we know what someone does to kind of set themselves up for hard disease? We, I mean, we don't know completely. But, you know, I'm guessing, again, what's good for muscle? It's good for brain. It's good for all of these things. We're, we're, we're true. And it really comes in. What we talk about how disease takes decades to build. Like you don't wake up one morning diabetic. You don't wake up one morning with heart disease. It's been building and building and building. And I think, I think it then follows that if you're not laying down that muscle foundation early in the game, it's just not going to be there for you later. Which, again, as we said earlier, it's never too late. And everybody's got some muscle. Like you can't, you can't be moving without it. So you can build on whatever you've got, but it'll be easier. And you'll have more of it. Is there research around people who were athletes and then just became sedentary and then go back to it? Yeah. So those people, these are great questions. Those people seem to have better revound. You know, there's this idea of muscle memory. We don't, it's thought of more as a neuromuscular connection. Well, I was going to say it's a brain, right? Yeah. Yes, but I am telling you from clinical experience, those people that were athletes and then became sedentary, they have a much easier time getting back and building muscle. Very much so. Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. And you know, we think of muscle as muscle muscle muscle and you've mentioned this a number of times, but the neuromuscular connections, like the the nerve innovation of the muscle, like those path nerve pathways, I'm sure maybe they go dormant, but they don't go away. So you're just reigniting something that was already there. Yeah. And I think that the musculature becomes, again, it just becomes primed. Yeah. Like efficient. Again, can you make muscle sick? Yes, but there is, there is something to be said for if you have trained and you have been well trained, the body, it seems to remember, even beyond this neuromuscular connection. I just think the tissue, yeah, it's just there. You know, whether it's you reinvigorate these satellite cells or whatever. Yeah. It's yeah, the body goes, yeah, I remember this. We can do, we can do this. Okay, so now you, we're just going to wind up now. You, you've said that you don't rise to your goals. You fail to your systems. So what systems shifts do you believe longevity-minded adults should implement that today that'll pay off 10, 20, 30 years down the road? Yeah, this is all about this idea of becoming forever strong. You know, this book is not about muscle and protein. It's about a movement. How do we develop stronger, more resilient people? And how do we have a stronger, more resilient culture? I think it is possible. And setting up a life around that. And this is where we really set standards. Are you the type of person that trains? Are you the type of person that seeks solutions versus find excuses? Are you the type of the person that gets off the plane and does something physical because you have made a commitment to do that? You know, movement is critical, it is non-optional, and it's under our voluntary control. It's not easy. It's a complete pain, right? I dread every Monday. Every, so I train with my coach, his name is Carlos Mata. He's at Sigma here in Houston. I train three days a week every night the night before I start bitching about it. Like in my head, oh, I'm going to wake up late, oh, I've got my kids, I can't do it. And every single morning I still go. But I know that I'm going to bitch about it because it sucks. It's inconvenient. But if you choose the harder thing now, life is just a little bit easier. But if you choose the easy path, life becomes a lot more difficult. And so, you know, training, if I had to pick training or nutrition, I would pick training any day of the week over nutrition. Interesting. Well, listen, but yeah, you can eat well and not train. Yeah, yeah. I mean, that is what is going to stimulate your tissue the most. And then again, you stimulate it across the blood ring barriers, all kinds of things that happen. Yeah. Yeah. And I'd like to point out to the audience what you just said, like you are, you are an athlete, you're a lifelong athlete, and you have a trainer. Like you are not just wandering into the gym. I'm like, I'm going to be doing the best I've ever done. Girls today, pardon? I don't even consider myself an athlete. I will say that. Oh, you look like one. I do have a trainer. I'm very sad. How he standards in our house, you know, my husband. He's so he's a third year urology resident. And he was stressed because they had that in service and he was hungry. I got to go run a race. And the race was like 50 hours. And I'm like, you are honestly, you've lost your mind. You're absolutely bananas. But yeah, I don't consider myself an athlete. But what I do think is that I'm not an expert trainer. Right. I'm not going to know what position my next is going to be in. I'm tired. And also, it's really important. So, no, I invest my time and my resources into a coach, which I really think that that people should do. I think that is so important. And also, I don't like training alone. I don't either. I don't I can't I won't do it. Like, I mean, I can when I was I was traveling recently in the gym that I go to, they post the workouts. So while I was, you know, in a not great place, like the weights were rusted, everything was gross, I could still do the workout. Right. Like I didn't love it because I had no music. There was nobody for me to play with. But I was able to get the workout in. And I always you just you just feel good. But having a trainer or doing small group training or whatever it is that's going to get you there is going to be. It'll pay back in in spades. So let's just move into future vision to close the podcast. Right. That's okay. So what aspect of muscle science and I can't wait for this answer. Do you believe is about to break into the mainstream medicine in the next five years? But most people don't even know is on the radar when you may have mentioned some of it earlier. Yeah, I think that that's really it. I think that it's going to be one of a handful of things. It's going to be the use of antibiotics. It's going to be better muscle testing and it's going to be inter muscular out of post testing and really looking at the quality. And then the third thing is going to be these machines and these radio frequencies to allow for super muscular contraction. Yeah. Those are the three things that I think that we're going to start to see that we desperately need. And that will change the musculature for people. Right. If you could redesign the standard medical checkup for every adult, what assessments would become mandatory? You probably are doing it in your practice. Yeah. Strength has to be strength. Physical capacity has to be in there. And then, you know, all the testing that we think about for metabolic syndrome is really testing for muscle health because metabolic component. So those are the big things. Again, really testing strength and muscle mass just in general. Yeah, for sure. What's your personal North Star right now? The mission or question you are waking up every day trying to answer. I mean, I think that it's always the same question. It's how can I be of service? And I holding up my end of my responsibilities. Love it. And last question. What do you hope people really hear when you say muscle is the organ of longevity? And what do you fear they might still be missing? That's easy. Strength is a responsibility. It's not a luxury. And it's the only organ system we have full voluntary control over. And you have to utilize it now because aging is inevitable. But how we do it collectively, we'll determine our future. Love it. As a culture. Love it. Thank you. That's awesome. Thank you so much, Dr. Lyon. This was a great conversation. Can't wait for your book January 27th. Please let people know how they can find the book, find you, follow your work, all the things. So you can find me on Instagram, Dr. Gabrielle Lian and our website, Dr. Gabrielle Lian.com, our medical practices listed there. Strong medical, my podcast. And then the book can be found on Amazon, Barnes and Noble. And again, this is the book that I wish that I had. And I really, I just hope that you guys enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed putting it together. So I think it's going to be awesome. Thank you so much. Thank you for your time today. It was great to have you. Bye. Bye folks. Just a quick reminder that all of the information presented in this podcast is for information purposes only no medical advice, no diagnosing, no treatments suggested here. Before you try anything that you hear about or learn about here, make sure that you check with your medical provider.